WCT 1.2: Sideways

 Today there will be more food porn.  I’ll even lead with my breakfast.  The name of the place is Cafe Telegrama, and it was on the way out of town.  Parking was tough and I was told, after a 20 minute search landed us back at the first place I tried that was deemed “too far to walk in this neighborhood” that “this had better be good.”  It was. 😅

Brioche French toast in maple syrup.  It was good.  K, who is a great believer in the “maple syrup delivery system” way of life, thought it was lacking in maple syrup. :)

She had the breakfast burrito, in the morning’s attempt to get into the California vibe; she even added avocado.  She said it was very good; the sauce was “tomatillo like”.

Then we headed north on 101, following the footsteps of the movie Sideways, which turned out to be a recurring topic during the day. 

We made a similar journey in ‘21 in August for our anniversary, so knew a couple places to stop.  First was in downtown Santa Barbara, which seems another cute, quaint town on the water here.  The name of the place is Margerum, and it’s not a winery but a tasting shop.  

She tasted.  Supposedly the flight was 4, but the server added several (4?) more.  

The server could not have been more negative in terms of experience.  First, she did a lot of looking at her phone.  Like every two minutes she had to check.  Clearly, there was something going to happen in her life that was more important and exciting than work.  

Then her delivery on the wines was Bert Stein as teacher in The Wonder Years saying “this one is from our blah blah vineyard and its a cool spot with almond trees, so it has the aroma of strawberries, raspberries and a back note of citrus” (I think she said that word-for-word [sans blah blah OC] at one point).  

The best part was K calculating what to do about buying.  The tasting was $40 but if you bought 3 bottles of wine, it was free!  Newsflash: we bought 3 bottles of wine. :). We’ll worry how to get them home later. 

Then off north toward Solvang, which is where they stay in the movie.  K had found a place “on the way” and we ended up in some small town’s “industrial park” (it was one building :)) that had FOUR tasting rooms.  But she had this one picked out based on rating, Buscador.  

It was a hole-in-the-wall (sorry Matt), with some outdoor furniture and inside a sectional sofa and a bar made from a slab from a tree, with a place on the customer side that was chipped out…

There was a couple at the bar, in the midst of their tasting.  When K asked what he had the woman said ‘everything is good.”  Hmmm.  

There was a TV high on the wall above the sectional, angled so Matt could watch the NFL playoff game (the snow in New England just made us all feel better).  

Matt, who turned out to be the owner and the vintner, had eight bottles lined up on the bar.  He started K with the Chenin Blanc (unusual but one she likes) and somehow I got to talking (I guess I was bored watching someone else drink) to the couple.  

Turns out he is an inveterate golfer (got to use that word two blogs in a row!) — played 300 rounds last year.  He is a CEO of a company he owns somewhere nearby and he had played golf pretty much everywhere I mentioned.  I didn’t get to Australia, but I”m sure Dennis has been there, too.  He plays Pebble Beach, where we’re going in two weeks, “often” and has a guy there who caddies for him every time he goes up.  He gave me his number and the caddie’s. :)

Then there was his partner (I didn’t actually check their marital status) who turned out to be a schoolteacher of 29 years.  So she had questions about teaching.  She had this big laugh and I kept saying things she thought were funny — I didn’t think it was my best material.  But K texted the kids and said I had been “charming” (I just thought I was talking).  I asked at one point if they’d adopt me and if they had a spare room.)

Meanwhile, Matt is working K along the line of the bottles.  He isn’t saying a lot about the wine, I don’t think he mentioned strawberries or back notes at all, but he knew his stuff, obviously.  He had been an environmental engineer, then his wife died 20 years ago and he did a life change and ended up going into the wine business just about the time the movie Sideways came out.  He said when the movie came out the crowds on weekends went up 100 percent or more and that it went from 40 vineyards in the Santa Ynez valley to 400!!!  He also said the movie ruined demand for Merlot and that it had gotten that wrong in the movie — Miles doesn’t like Merlot bc that was his thing with his ex-wife and now that she’d left him, he associated it with her.  It had nothing to do with the wine. 

As you can tell, we had quite the time, and quite the chat, and Matt gave K tastes of a couple wines he didn’t have out (yeah, I think she had 10 pours there — she doesn’t remember :)) and she ended up taking my credit card and joining Matt’s wine club.  

Matt told a bit about wine-making and how a different vintner would put a different “finish” as a wine goes from cask to bottle.  He said he had his own way of doing it that was “accessible” (WTF does that mean?) and different and which I told K probably meant he used his old undies to filter it.  I was told that wasn’t true.  Huh. 

Then off to dinner.  This was at Petros.  In one of life’s small miracles, I remembered the name of the place from 5 years ago and we had reservations there again.  It’s not only a winery, but the restaurant specializes in Greek food.  It was an excellent dinner. 

We split this salad, which you can see what it had in it…I think (it was dark in there) —

Like almost everything, it had feta on it. 

I had the skewers with rice, which were good. 

K

Had the stuffed chicken, which had feta and something in it, with the Greek spices in and on it. 

They had this version of mousse (adulterated with whip cream) for dessert. 

Shockingly, as I listened to the Bears game on the 2 plus hour drive back to LA, my companion fell asleep about twenty minutes in — just as the Bears were tying the game!!!!  She missed overtime.  And about another hour.

And that was our Sideways day.  No one slurped from the spit bucket or ran the car into a tree, but much fun was had anyway. 

And I move in with Dennis and Danielle next week. 😂

Tomorrow we are going to do some LA tourist stuff. Manana.